From Joshua to Judges


A few days ago, I finished up on the book of Joshua, and I began to read in Judges. I began to reflect back on what I had read. Can I summarize some key points for you?

The Children of Israel had a mighty deliverance after 430 years in Egypt. God showed the world His might and His power. Even those in the promise land knew of what happened, and 40 years after the Israelites left the Egypt, Rahab told the spies “all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you”.

Joshua is a tale of crossing the Jordan and conquering. Brave deeds, conquests, walls breaking down, the wicked slain, and the heavens being commanded by a man. What victory was shared in those glorious days! Only one quick reminder of what sin in the camp does and that was quickly dealt with.

Then Joshua and the men that follow him eventually die off. What happens next is a tragedy. The book of judges MUST be the saddest book of the Bible. People of the Most High God, becoming complacent, forgetting who it was that gave them the land they enjoyed. Then comes judgement, then deliverance, slipping back to sin, then judgement, then deliverance. The cycle continues time after time. The roller coaster of life. Sin, shame, crying out to God, and forgiveness.

To think: these people were in their land of promise!! Enjoying the blessings of God. They had crossed over. Many would say “they’ve arrived”. Yet, being possessors of the promise, they lived such lives as to anger their loving Provider.

Have you had a book of Joshua experience, and now living in the book of Judges? Does this roller coaster affect you as it did them? Day to day, year by year, are you finding yourself closer to God, or still on the same roller coaster track, up and down, round and round – doing good one week, can’t seem to shake the world the next.

Too often we accept this lifestyle in our Christian walk!

This lifestyle must NOT be allowed to continue. Do not stay in the car of the roller coaster. Stop the ride! Get off and onto solid ground again!

Read the last 3 chapters of Judges sometime. See for yourself what the end of such a lifestyle becomes! I warn you, the sin in those last 3 chapters is appalling. Appropriately it ends with the sad confession of the state of Israel – “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” Complete anarchy.

Please, take this as a warning, as a wake up call. Get out of the roller coaster. Fall so deep into Christ, that you don’t know which way to go to get out. Don’t live out your promise the way the Children of Israel lived out theirs.

“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. ” – I Corinthians 10:11

Falling into His love and grace,

-Bro Trevor

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